Whatever Happened to Olivier Armstrong?
by Etaleah
Summary: "Olivier Armstrong, commander of Briggs fortress, heir to the Armstrong family, and Ice Queen extraordinaire, has attempted suicide." When a shy reporter is sent out to learn why, she learns of the horrifying chain of events that ultimately led to the major general's drastic and deadly decisions. This is no ordinary story, and the plot twists are only growing more shocking...


**Hi! **

**So this is WAY different from anything I've ever written or tried to write. I'd be interested to see what people think (hint hint reviewers) and whether or not the idea takes off. Oh and I have a new poll and a new Tumblr, so please vote and check out my blog. Anyone can vote, even people who don't have accounts and now you can ask me questions and stuff. **

"What the hell happened to that woman?" Mr. Tully asked in disgust, scrunching up his nose, never taking his eyes from the newspaper with ten-inch headlines. "I swear it's like she just up and got possessed."

"I know. Poor General Armstrong." I sighed, resting my chin on my arms. "She's been slandered so much that at this rate she'll have lost everything she's worked so hard to gain."

Mr. Tully gave me a funny look, his dark mustache crinkling. "Don't tell me you're feeling sorry for her. Charity, you do know she did it to herself, right? Woman's the biggest hypocrite I ever seen. For years she's all about survival of the fittest, let the weak be devoured, anyone who commits suicide is a coward. And now she's gone and done it herself."

I shifted my eyes to the floor out of habit. "I'm just glad she didn't really die," I muttered. I waited for him to clear his throat and leave, slamming the newsroom door behind him. It was eight am, time for morning coffee. Well, for him anyway. I never could get into that stuff. I couldn't even speak the coffee language, didn't know a mocha from a frappe. But even though coffee never worked for me as an energy boost, it did succeed in giving me some quiet time in the newsroom all to myself. Just me and my typewriter.

And yesterday's paper. One where the front page practically screamed at us, "_Major General Olivier Armstrong, commander of Fort Briggs, heir to the Armstrong family, and Ice Queen Extraordinaire attempts suicide in triplicate."_ What a weird word, triplicate. It made it sound as though she'd committed suicide three different times instead of just three different ways at once. I pushed my glasses up and reread it for the hundredth time, still not wanting to believe my idol had cracked.

_Two days ago, a Fort Briggs soldier heard a gunshot from the Major General's quarters and went to investigate. He found Armstrong hanging from the ceiling by her belt with a hole in her forehead that was spewing blood. The general was rushed to the infirmary, and according to the investigation team and what little medical reports were made available, she had taken an entire bottle of pills just moments before not only hanging herself, but also shooting herself in the head with the standard gun that all military personnel are required to carry._

_The doctors who are treating the general have declined our request for comment, but say that she is in very critical condition, and at first they weren't sure if she'd make it. However, it appears that she may have been discovered just in time. After a stomach pump, several surgeries, and numerous painkillers and sedatives were injected into her system, Armstrong appears to be stable, resting comfortably in the Briggs infirmary. It is possible she may be transferred to a hospital in North City._

"_We don't know why this happened," a soldier admitted. "The general has always been so strong. This was a complete shock to us."_

_They certainly weren't the only ones. Despite Briggs's isolated location, word of Olivier Armstrong's breakdown and suicide spread fast across the country. Two days later even international reporters have begun to crowd outside of Briggs, bundled up in their warmest coats and demanding to know why Armstrong felt the need to take her own life, and why so drastically. Unfortunately no one's talking. The Armstrong family has completely barred their doors and Briggs remains guarded and off-limits to civilians and press. The same goes for all military headquarters. As for the general herself, she appears to have remained either asleep, unconscious, or incoherent since the suicide. Little does she know her entire country is eagerly waiting to hear what went wrong._

"_It's scary to hear that one of our strongest leaders has apparently fallen apart and possibly given up just like that," Ms. Bradley told the press. 'I always liked General Armstrong, and I hope she gets better. She was the one soldier that seemed invincible, like nothing bad could ever happen to her. I'm worried about what this means for Amestris. Is it possible that Olivier knew something so terrible that she tried to kill herself as a way of protecting others? Will Drachma take advantage of the fact that Briggs is now in turmoil? I just don't know." _

_Currently the soldiers of Briggs insist that even in the absence of their leader, they are prepared for absolutely anything and will continue on like normal, though they pray, as the rest of us do, for the recovery of our Northern Wall, both mentally and physically._

"Why does this writer assume there's something wrong with her?" I wondered. "They don't know for sure she had a breakdown." Or maybe when you commit suicide, people assume that breakdowns come with the territory. I ran a hand through my just-recently-chopped-off brown hair and absent-mindedly watched a snow of dandruff fall onto the newsprint. Olivier's picture glared back at me, fierce and determined. _I wonder if this will be the last picture we ever see of her like that. _I couldn't imagine how she must have looked now. Some of the reports had stated that her neck was in horrible shape after the hanging, and at first there'd been concern of brain damage from the gunshot. Actually that concern was still there, but it would be hard to know the extent until the general was coherent again, and with all the stuff the Briggs doctors had filled her up with, God only knew when that would be.

"Confound it! I can't believe people would rather waste their time with that infernal contraption than read my papers!"

I cringed. Mr. Tully could get loud. Through the window I could see him sweeping a desk full of office supplies to the floor. The poor secretary looked terrified.

"I tell you Ms. Wellington, our number of subscribers is dropping like flies, and all because of what?" He made air quotes with his fingers and began to speak in a high, mocking tone. "Oh, I don't like the feel of newsprint on my widdle fingers; oh, my eyesight is so poor; oh, I just like hearing someone talk to me!" He rolled his eyes. "Preposterous!"

He marched back into the newsroom and instantly his face turned almost purple. I realized too late that I'd forgotten to hide my radio.

"I though I told you to get rid of that thing! Or do you _want_ us to go out of business?"

"I'm so sorry sir!" I jumped up and unplugged the radio, the struggled to lift it and shove it under the desk. "I promise you won't see it again-"

"That's what you said yesterday! What do you have to say for yourself?"

"I…" My shoulders slumped and my hair fell into my eyes. "I just wanted to see if I could find out anything more about Olivier Armstrong, that's all."

Mr. Tully sneered and jabbed a finger at me. "Let me guess. Like all the other nitwits of your generation, you think the radio covers news faster because it broadcasts all the time, instead of the paper because it only comes out once a day? Well let me tell you something! A five-cent newspaper is a hell of a lot cheaper than that bucket of bolts you've got there, and I don't care what people say, nothing can replace printed, black and white words. Because when something is in print, it's immortalized. But when that godforsaken radio program is over, the information is gone forever. Anyone who thinks this whole radio business is going to stick around is a fool! Do you hear me?"

"Yes sir." Even I could barely hear myself. My heart was pounding. My eyes darted wildly, looking at old papers, typewriters, the dim flickering light bulb hanging from the ceiling, the cups on desks with more pens than they could possibly handle, anywhere but Mr. Tully's eyes.

His finger was in my face again. "I'm warning you Charity, there are plenty of novice writers out there who will gladly take a minimum wage columnist job. Replacing you would be no problem."

"I understand sir. Please don't do that sir."

"Why weren't there any quotes in your last article?"

Not this again. My stomach felt heavy. "I…due to circumstances, I wasn't able to secure an interview before the deadline, sir." Actually I had, after about a week of working up the courage to ask. But like most people I approached with a pen and a notebook, the answer was an emphatic no. A woman who could perform in a stupid costume in front of hundreds onstage with no problem apparently couldn't handle a local newspaper that no one reads anyway asking for a single sentence. Screw logic, right?

Mr. Tully rolled his eyes. "Charity, I have had it. Reporting- no, _journalism_- is not about opinions and commentary, not even for columnists and reviewers. It's about reporting the facts and backing them up with evidence from credible sources, all within a tight word count and a brisk pace. You can't write an article on a community theater and its successful cast without quotes from said cast, or it's all just a load of BS in the eyes of readers! Now I gave you this job because you can write better than most kids your age and your technical mistakes are minimal. As it is you're one of the better writers I have. But if I don't see some quotes, this paper is going to be short one reporter. And with the way things are, if we can't come up with a story that'll save this paper, you and I will both be starving artists."

I couldn't speak. It would have been incredibly cliché to tell him this job was all I had, but in my case it was true. Writing was the only thing I was good at, and it wasn't like anyone was going to offer me a book deal anytime soon. Newspapers were my only hope of income (albeit an extremely low-paying one), and now that Amestris was moving in the direction of the radio, my late bills were stacking up high.

Mr. Tully was _still _ranting. "At this rate we're going to need a miracle. Some days I feel like maybe I'll go as crazy as that general-"

"She's not crazy!" I shouted, then covered my mouth. Mr. Tully stopped for a moment. I guess it's easy to forget that I actually have the ability to speak loudly since it's such a rare occurrence.

"How the hell do you know? I'd say what she did was pretty darn crazy. Sleeping pills, hanging, _and _a shot to the head? All within seconds of each other? Seems a bit excessive if you ask me."

"She probably just needed some help." My voice was back to its normal volume. "Maybe she was in trouble and no one was there for her. Maybe she just got desperate and thought it was the only way out. Half of what's been printed in the tabloids about her is lies anyway."

"How do you know?"

Well what was I supposed to say? That Olivier Armstrong had been my hero since I was a little girl? That I'd kept every news clipping of her and Briggs that I could find in a special box at home? That I'd even written a small biography on her just because I could? That would have been the truth. I even scavenged for the Fort Briggs address and sent it to her to make sure the information was accurate, but I never got a reply.

"I just…think people are being unfair. She works hard to protect our country and we should honor her, not slander her. That article on my desk is one of the nicer ones. The other ones used up most of their word count just calling her names."

Mr. Tully nodded, seemingly in deep thought. "You know I have the perfect job for you. Since you care about this general so much, I'll give you three weeks to get the full story on her. I want you to find out what happened, why she did it, et cetera. And I want the majority of the article to be quotes, you understand me? From soldiers, her family, her doctors. Hell, I could care less who says it just so long as you get some interviews for once."

"You…you want me to go to _Briggs_? But nobody is allowed in there. The other members of the press already tried."

He waved my worries away. "They'll let 'em in eventually, they always do. And you can still talk to her family, they're right here in Central. Not like their house is hard to find."

"But…" I bit my nail. He wanted me to go and talk to all those people? Briggs soldiers were known for being unfriendly, and the Armstrongs had already slammed the door in reporter's faces. He wanted _me _to be the one to try and talk to them?

"This is the biggest story this nation's seen in a long time. Charity, this could be what keeps us going. That is your assignment, and that's the end of our discussion. You've got three weeks until our monthly edition comes out, and by that time I expect to see a story on Olivier Armstrong that will force people to read the paper again." He turned his back to me and angrily began to type up a storm.

He might as well have asked me to jump off a moving train.

I took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of fresh, hot-off-the-press print and the musky odor of the newsroom for what would probably be the last time, and left on what I was certain would be a fool's errand.

To find out the truth about what happened to Olivier Armstrong, hopefully without being mean to her, before anyone else did.

I was in for an adventure that would prove bigger than I ever dreamed.

**Hmm...well this was fun. Not sure when it'll be updated or what I should have Charity do first, but I like the idea. It was a very spontaneous one that just came to me one night when I was trying to sleep. I like writing about the press because I come from a family of writers and editors who deal with the issues in this story, and I am press myself since I've worked for newspapers. In modern-day society, it's the Internet that's killing us instead of the radio, but I figured it would have the same effect in Amestris. **


End file.
